Caylie's First Half Marathon

Yesterday was Caylie's first half marathon! She was both excited and nervous about it.

Her weekend had already been busy. She had gone on a church retreat on Friday evening, which really lasted until Sunday, but since she and Charles (the boy in the picture below) were both planning to run the half, they rode home with our church's music leader after the Saturday night events ended at the retreat. They didn't arrive back in Little Rock until 2:30 am, which didn't make for a good night's sleep before a big race, but she's a trooper, and says that it was well worth it!

Here she is before the race with Charles, and Kaitlyn (who ran the full marathon!), as well as Kaitlyn's sisters, Betsy and Hannah. Charles, Kaitlyn, and Hannah are some of Caylie's homeschool friends, and Betsy attends the school that Caylie attended before homeschooling.

Below, Caylie is with one of her best friends, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth's sister Rachel. Rachel and Caylie were running buddies for the race.

Here they are in the starting line up. It took almost 10 minutes for all of the runners to cross the official starting line, but since they all wore timing tags on their shoes, they were able to get accurate finish times.

We were around the 6 mile mark to cheer them on! It took them about an hour and a half to get to us, and they were still all smiles! Look at all of those cups scattered on the ground!

Elizabeth had made signs to hold up for both Caylie and Rachel at this point. Here is Elizabeth with her mom, and Carson. Carson L.O.V.E.S. Elizabeth (and we do too!). She has spent a lot of time with our family, and he just considers her to be one of us! :)

Caylie approaching the finish line...

Their finish time was 2:36:30. They completed the second half in less time than the first, which was surprising. Caylie said that once they got to the 6th or 7th mile, that they realized that they were going to be okay, so they picked up the pace a little bit at that point.

Here she is with Elizabeth after finishing. She said that as she was approaching the finish line, that she actually felt like she could keep going, but that when she stopped, her legs immediately started cramping up. She sat and rested for quite a while before hobbling to the car! :)

My mom had skipped church in order to arrive at the race site in time to see Caylie cross the finish line! Here they are as we started heading back to the cars...

We told Caylie that she could choose where she wanted to eat for lunch, and she chose Luby's! That seemed so funny to me, but she IS a healthy eater, and it WAS her choice, so we all headed out to Luby's!

After lunch, mom headed home, and Caylie took some ibuprofen, a hot jacuzzi bath, and then a LONG 4 hour nap...she had some sleep to catch up on even without having just run a half marathon!

In other news, Caylie told us that while on the retreat, she decided that she wants to homeschool again next year. We had told her that it would be her choice, and she has not taken the decision lightly!

Oh my...time to start planning! :)

Writing the Waves,
Christi